Cuba

Issue: Cuba's Baseball Team Is Banned From The World Baseball Classic.

January 17, 2006

A U.S. government ban against a Cuban baseball team breaks with past precedent, and makes America look intolerant. The Bush administration must rethink this counterproductive decision.

The World Baseball Classic is scheduled to take place in March, pitting star and aspiring ballplayers from 16 countries in a tournament. The games are spread among numerous locations, including Orlando and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

There's the rub. The administration, following requests from Cuban-American congressional representatives, including Miami Republicans Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, won't issue the Cuban team a license to play in the United States.

The prohibition breaks decades of precedents that seated baseball and politics in different dugouts. That's why a Baltimore Orioles team was allowed to play in Cuba in 1999, and why the Cuban national team played in the United States later that year.

In fact, Cuban teams have played games in the United States plenty of times. One such appearance was the 1987 Pan American Games when the Reagan administration, no softie on communism, let the Cubans play.

The Treasury Department says the law mandates the ban, to keep the team from earning money for the Castro government. Others believe the real goal of the ban is to keep Castro from using the team, which could meet with great success, as a propaganda tool.

Neither rationale makes sense. Cuba's economy needs a lot more than a baseball team's prized earnings. And real baseball fans know Cuba produced very good players before the 1959 Cuban Revolution.

The world is not going to judge Castro's government any differently if the team is allowed to play. Global opinion, however, is going to weigh against the United States if it sticks to this policy error.